Russian invasion of Ukraine | Fewer tweets, more discussion
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik (@Rood) is joined by CEO Duncan Drasdo and Financial Director Andy Green from the Manchester United Supporters Trust for a special episode on all things behind the scenes at Old Trafford including a brief history of MUST and their aims today, views on INEOS and Sir Jim Ratcliffe so far, and the Old Trafford regeneration.
Stop the whataboutism please. I am Greek, I was in Greece during the 1990s, and you know very well that Greece supported Serbia a lot during the 1990s. Greece tried to stop the wars in the Balkans. I know very well what your politicians and your media were telling you in the 1990s. Some nationalist Greek politicians were telling the Greeks the same things. During the 1990s, I thought that Serbia was mostly right on this, it was only much later that I read about the whole thing and I understood that the blame was mostly on Serbia.
I understand that you hate the West, you blame NATO for everything that happened back then. I assure you I understand. And I understand you must be unhappy living in a NATO country. I really believe it would be good for you if you read a couple of books about it to understand what happened in the 1990s from other people's perspectives, not just Serbs. It will always be hard for you to accept that the Serb nationalists are to blame for what happened back then, but still it will help you realise that it is not what you thought. And who knows, perhaps you will be happier living where you live now. You may also understand that the Russians have nothing good for Serbia (or for Greece, or for the Balkans, or for Ukraine). It is better for us all if the are defeated.
And here is an answer to your question: NATO cannot solve all the problems in the world. But NATO can solve some problems in Europe. And it did solve the problem in the Balkans, with minimum bloodshed considering the situation. Before NATO bombed Serbia, there were years and years when the EU (and Greece) tried to help the Serbs understand the situation and negotiate a solution, but the Serbs refused to listen.
Scale?
We have a thread for that.
https://www.redcafe.net/threads/israel-palestine-discussion.438643/page-205
And we have a thread for your general whataboutery.
https://www.redcafe.net/threads/geopolitics-too-whataboutery-for-other-threads.469141/page-66
It would be great if you took your off-topic side quests to them so this thread can get back to its actual topic of conversation.
Tucker Carlson? That’s what you’re bringing to this?
To be fair it does look quite convincing, they've done a great job photoshopping this and it's something that you can expect from Russian propaganda.
Interesting report in a german rag this morning:
Vladimir Putin apparently wants to take over Belarus: Secret paper shows plan
This emerges from a leaked secret paper from the Moscow presidential administration, which is available to the Süddeutsche Zeitung , WDR and NDR.
Accordingly, Putin wants to gradually take over the neighboring country. This is to be done by infiltrating Belarus, ruled by Alexander Lukashenko, on an economic, military and political level. One of Putin's goals: to reduce Western influence and create a bulwark against NATO.
The targets are listed on a 17-page document that several Western secret services believe to be authentic, according to SZ . "The content of the document is plausible and corresponds to what we also perceive," a senior intelligence official told the paper.
Vladimir Putin apparently wants to take over Belarus: Secret paper shows plan
This emerges from a leaked secret paper from the Moscow presidential administration, which is available to the Süddeutsche Zeitung , WDR and NDR.
Accordingly, Putin wants to gradually take over the neighboring country. This is to be done by infiltrating Belarus, ruled by Alexander Lukashenko, on an economic, military and political level. One of Putin's goals: to reduce Western influence and create a bulwark against NATO.
The targets are listed on a 17-page document that several Western secret services believe to be authentic, according to SZ . "The content of the document is plausible and corresponds to what we also perceive," a senior intelligence official told the paper.
The bloody expansionist West again.
Obvious move. Belarus is there for the taking. Unlikely there would be any serious fighting back going on and they would surely not receive any help from the west, certainly not as long as Lukashenko is in charge. I mean it's already pretty much taken over by having 1000s of Russian troops on their lands.
Putin's rants are becoming so boring. Currently diving into 19th century history to explain why nothing is Russia's fault.
I need to find them and link them but I read some articles on the current huge importance of Belarus for Russia.
Not talking about historical claptrap. Allegedly the Belarussian military industry is producing some munitions and transport vehicles that are absolutely necessary for the Russian army's ongoing war in Ukraine. Their military industries, Russia's & Belarus', were intertwined and co-dependent (though obviously Belarus relies much more on Russia than the inverse) since the Soviet era. The difference now being that Russia is at war, so the Belarusian industry becomes critical for the former. Also the Belarus is becoming a training ground for the Russian troops, who lost a lot of their experienced officers and trainers/educators in the failed March 2021 offensive for Kiev and is keeping the rest of them engaged in the war effort.
If the above are true, a slow takeover of Belarus is to be expected. The Kremlin cannot risk Belarus slipping from its orbit, at this time more than ever. But while recognising that the dependence on Belarus might be a soft spot of Russia, there is 0 appetite for Western involvement in Belarus to disrupt Russia's business. There is no fledgling democracy there to protect, unlike Ukraine. No movement to support. Their state is far more compromised by and dependent on Russia than Ukraine was. And Ukraine is (probably) already pushing at the limits of western voters' willingness for foreign intervention in ways of financial and military support.
Not talking about historical claptrap. Allegedly the Belarussian military industry is producing some munitions and transport vehicles that are absolutely necessary for the Russian army's ongoing war in Ukraine. Their military industries, Russia's & Belarus', were intertwined and co-dependent (though obviously Belarus relies much more on Russia than the inverse) since the Soviet era. The difference now being that Russia is at war, so the Belarusian industry becomes critical for the former. Also the Belarus is becoming a training ground for the Russian troops, who lost a lot of their experienced officers and trainers/educators in the failed March 2021 offensive for Kiev and is keeping the rest of them engaged in the war effort.
If the above are true, a slow takeover of Belarus is to be expected. The Kremlin cannot risk Belarus slipping from its orbit, at this time more than ever. But while recognising that the dependence on Belarus might be a soft spot of Russia, there is 0 appetite for Western involvement in Belarus to disrupt Russia's business. There is no fledgling democracy there to protect, unlike Ukraine. No movement to support. Their state is far more compromised by and dependent on Russia than Ukraine was. And Ukraine is (probably) already pushing at the limits of western voters' willingness for foreign intervention in ways of financial and military support.
Agreed, yet they do all sit there and lap it up don't they.
It's either that or a suicide by falling from a window with 5 gunshots in your back.
There certainly was a movement, but we didn't show any support at all. That's one people I felt the west really let down.
Oh dear
Is Tucker Carlson the most popular source of news in Serbia by any chance? It would explain a lot.Perhaps so. But a movement needs to have figureheads and crucially, support from factions within the power structures of the state. It needs people with hard power and influence to want to be part of the change.
The Ukrainian state in 2014 had that. Yes it was compromised by Russia, but there were enough people in position of power that weren’t compromised and wanted change. Hence when Euromaidan took place and 100 or so people died in the crackdown, the security services and a lot of politicians decided that that was enough. Yanukovych was impeached, the security services commanders started not following his orders and then the President had to flee the country to Russia. But when the whole state apparatus is supportive of the regime no matter what, it’s extremely difficult to effect change.
Likewise, if there were large protests in Moscow, how do you support regime change if everyone within the power structures stays loyal to the regime? If all the people in the Duma and the Kremlin, all the heads of security services and all the oligarchs are aligned in the belief that regime change would be catastrophic for them and if all the actual adversaries of the regime are just completely powerless people… where do you start?
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I'm amazed at how easily he can just outright lie to his people, and how he proceeds to make up nonsensical arguments as to why his lie isn't a lie.
The GDP and economic bit is interesting though. He's basically saying that while it may look like Russia's economy is collapsing, it's not and it's just a minor restructuring, pay no attention to the crumbling industrial sector.
I find it difficult to know at this point how much he truly believes and how much he’s just trying to get other Russians to believe.
18.5% Increase in minimum wage! That's not a good sign.
His history rants sounds like he's been reading books he doesn't understand and settled on his own interpretation of history. Some of the things he says is just so out there.
I think it’s difficult to criticise the West for that. It would have been an immensely hard job to get rid of Lukashenko (plus Russian backing). I’m not sure what you think they could have done that would have worked?
Sounds like a certain Serbian contributor in this thread!
Leading Republican presidential candidate in many polls...
For some the whole history started in 1999 when the NATO bombing occured. Thing is a quite a lot happened prior to that. Agreed on all points.
I can see where he's coming from. We heard the same things in 1991. Serbia attacked Croatia although they didnt want to, they were provoked. Then they started the war in Bosnia (of course provoked ) and topped it with mass killings of Albanians in Kosovo before NATO finally intervened.
Similary now Russians and pro Russians are claiming Russia was provoked to attack Ukraine although, bless them, only thing they ever wanted was peace.
In 1991 Serb forces were bombing Dubrovnik and claimed they're not doing it but the defenders were burning tyres in the town to portray it like they're being bombed.
Every time a Ukrainian town is getting bobmed Russians says its the Ukrainians themselves who are doing it so they can get more western weapons or the their missiles... Which they're using to shot down Russian ones mind you..
Similarities (and that's just the top) are astounding.
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I wonder if that's not just posturing for the voters. The US has no interest in a destabilized Europe and they aren't supporting Ukraine out of selflessness alone but also in their own interest. If he doesn't know that himself, his advisors security advisors would surely highly recommed it to him.
On a sidenote, I also wonder if that is such a clever strategy. I imagine the Republican voters will be pretty divided on the matter (like on many topics). This could illustrate how hard he will find it to formulate a clear agenda without losing large chunks of his voter base.
He's certainly trying to ensure that he doesn't get outflanked on his right from more rabid America Firsters, so this is somewhat performative, but it also shows that he has no foreign policy chops of which to speak that he will need in the general. I was nervous of DeSantis a while back, I'm slowly seeing that he doesn't appear to be as impactful as I once thought.
I’m just glad there are (almost) two years until Biden steps down. I wouldn’t trust De Santos or Trump to continue the kind of aid that’s needed.
I hope you’re right. There also might be an element of simply arguing against what Biden is currently doing, in order to show he’s different. i.e. if Biden had done nothing about Ukraine then RDS might be sitting there calling him weak, just for the contrast.
He’s the one who’ll win it I think, especially if he comes up against Biden. I’d rather see Trump against Biden/Harris than DeSantis
You can probably think this thread shouldn't be sidetracked without supporting the narrative that Israel are just defending themselves. Israel are the aggressors, like Russia.
Yeah and the question will be if he can make that balancing act. Trump will go all in again with his lunacy and when DeSantis follows up, he'll lose voters on the other end. Trump will throw dirt at him and the dirtier it gets, the less likely his supporters are to switch to DeSantis if he wins the race for the Republican candidate. Mid to long term, Trumpism hasn't really done the Republican party a favor by brain washing huge chunks of their voter base.
He might copy Biden, stay vague on the more polarizing agenda points and double down on the motto "we may not agree on everything but we're united in that we want a new president" but a) Biden almost failed with it despite his opponent being much more polarizing and b) the duel with Trump will be dirty and leave DeSantis with a lot of ill will among Trump's supporters. Plus Trump probably won't play along with that.
From far away, I'm hopeful that the Republicans won't win the next election. And as you mention, two years is a long time and this war might even come to an end until then, maybe with inflation slowing down and all that. But even if not, the Republicans as far as I can see have been generally supportive of aid to Ukraine and it is telling how important it is to them if they refrain from their usual opportunism. Which is why I have the feeling that DeSantis will face huge resistance from his own people and potential voters if he really plans on reducing this support.
There’s a split in the GOP between the isolationists and the interventionist commie bashers; it’s very difficult to predict how that will play out. I’m almost at the point where I’d prefer Trump to get the nomination (on the grounds that he’s more likely to lose), but I really don’t know. I’ll be absolutely gutted if support for Ukraine diminishes after 2024 simply because of political point scoring.
Anything meaningful from the Putin's speech?
After you guys did genocides (plural) in Bosnia and Kosovo.
Not surprising your unconditional support for another genocidal regime.
No, just the same old rambling straight out of every warmongering dictator's playbook. The poor provoked russia fighting a heroic war against the devilish west to save their people and morals.
And of course the mandatory indirect nuclear threat must not be missing. They suspend the START treaty for now. But these are just more empty words. Their old, rotting arsenal slows down their nuclear potency more than any treaty does. And right now, they have no money anyways to spend on new nuclear bombs.
The mood during his speech reminded of a funeral, which suits if you think about it, because every speech from Putin is a new funeral for Russia's future.
Just see the bit about west opening the path for Hitler and nazis.
Somebody should mention him Molotov-Ribbentrop deal.
How Russian pensioners are sending money from their pension to soldiers who are defending Russia in Ukraine!